Each year, very large quantities of various plastic products are produced. While many of these products find relatively permanent use in our industrial society, the overwhelming preponderance thereof fall into the disposable-use category. Typical of these disposable-use type of products are fast food containers, supermarket plastic bags, dry cleaner plastic bags, agricultural plastic film mulches and the like.
It is well known that most plastics have found wide use at least partially because of their inertness. In fact, it is this same general chemical inertness which has in recent years started to cause a disposal problem of such magnitude, that some states have seriously contemplated banning, or at least significantly reducing, the use of "plastic" fast food containers, egg containers, milk containers, carbonated beverage containers and the like.
Unfortunately most of these products do not environmentally decay at any appreciable rate and thus they litter the road sides and fill the landfills. Furthermore, most of these polymers and products made therefrom do not incinerate very well. They tend to char, rather than burn, unless the incineration is at very high temperatures. Often, incineration gives off noxious fumes. This is economically unattractive; even more so because these plastics normally have a very high energy content in terms of their compositions, and should be a valuable energy source rather than an energy drain.
Still further, many plastics are made of chemical components which retard burning, for example polyvinyl chloride, polyvinylidene chloride, polytetrafluoroethylene, polycarbonates, and other similar materials. Many of these plastics, if burned in an uncontrolled manner, can give off various and environmentally undesirable by products, such as chlorinated or fluorinated hydrocarbons and acids.